Before Tom Brady makes his NFL broadcasting debut, veteran announcers share memories of their own first experiences — working through jitters, dealing with hiccups and learning the job.
By Judy Battista | September 3, 2024
The most eagerly anticipated debut this NFL season does not belong to Caleb Williams or any of the other young quarterbacks. It belongs, instead, to an old one. Tom Brady’s arrival in the FOX NFL broadcast booth has been several years — and a whole lot of practice — in the making.
“For that mind to be on display,” CBS’ Charles Davis mused, before predicting that even people who don’t care about the Cleveland Browns or Dallas Cowboys will tune in to see Brady at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sept. 8.
Brady, of course, is following a well-worn path from the field to the booth, and as you might expect, he has spent months picking the brains of those who have gone before him about what to expect and how to prepare. (He also made an appearance and provided some analysis during FOX Sports’ broadcast of the UFL championship game in June.) NBC’s Cris Collinsworth is among those who have advised Brady; Collinsworth has done the same for other broadcasters as they readied for their inaugural NFL assignments. Among other things, he warned Brady about the rigors of going from traveling for eight road games per year as a player to, depending on which network has the Super Bowl, 24 of them.
“I spend the first 10 minutes trying to talk them out of it — trying to tell them where the pain points are going to be,” Collinsworth said, of his chats with prospective players-turned-broadcasters. “It’s going to be hard. It’s a lot more work than you imagine. Usually, I can talk people out of it, or at least scare them a little bit.”
Brady hasn’t been scared off. As is true of those who have already spent years in the booth, he will likely remember the details of his first NFL game on television for the rest of his career. FOX Sports’ Kenny Albert, for instance, still has his hand-written chart with notes from his first game 30 years ago.
Here, from those Brady is joining in the press box, are the origin stories: the surprises and complications and secrets of doing a job with an audience of millions, and just as many details to cover.
In the beginning …
Joe Buck, ESPN play-by-play: I remember thinking, what the hell did I get myself into? I was 25. I’d been hired after doing an audition. I faked my way through an NFL game on a TV monitor. I’d never broadcast football — not high school, not college, not anything. Fast-forward to opening day 1994, and [analyst] Tim Green, who had never broadcast anything, was standing next to me, who had never broadcast football. I remember looking at him like, are you kidding? Either we were getting punked, or we were punking the United States.
Jim Nantz, CBS play-by-play: I got hired to be the studio host of our college football operation, the Prudential college football report. Doing pregame, halftime. In 1988, they asked us to go out on a Sunday and fill in for a team in Indianapolis. We did Tampa Bay at Indianapolis. That would have been like the seventh game on our schedule that day. Spot duty.
Cris Collinsworth, NBC game analyst (first called NFL games in 1990; eight seasons as NFL player): I had no idea what I was doing. No idea what the talk-back button was, how to look at replays. There was no practice game. There was no information. There was no road map. Nobody told you anything.
Kenny Albert, FOX Sports play-by-play: It was 9/4/94. FOX had hired several of us at a very young age. We had the first FOX Sports seminar — Pat Summerall and Dick Stockton were there, and the young ones were just sitting there with our mouths wide open. To be around John Madden. He actually raised his hand and said, “Why does the logo say FOX Sports? We only have one sport.” My first game, the analyst was Ron Pitts; we were the lowest crew on the totem pole. I was doing primarily hockey. The last football game I had worked was five years earlier — Division III [college football] on Staten Island Cable. Our first game was the L.A. Rams and the Arizona Cardinals in Anaheim, their last year in Los Angeles. Our crew worked 10 games that year, and three were in Anaheim. We called those the 2 percent skim-milk games, because that’s how much of the country saw them. They were blacked out.
Nate Burleson, CBS studio analyst (first called NFL games in 2015; 11 seasons as NFL player): It was nerve-racking. The broadcast boot camp taught me what I was good at, but also exposed weaknesses. When we did these mock games, I really struggled. When we left the boot camp, I told myself, I’ll never call a game. Never. And then the Detroit Lions called and said, we have some preseason games. I’m thinking, it’s preseason, I know most of the players, it’s Detroit. I’ve been there. And if all else fails, I’ll just tell Calvin Johnson stories. That was my game plan.
Jonathan Vilma, FOX Sports game analyst (first called NFL games in 2020; 10 seasons as NFL player): It was during COVID. I had never met [Kenny Albert, Vilma’s play-by-play partner] in person, or my producer or director. Kenny was coming back from Canada because he was doing hockey in the bubble. I get to Detroit, and they say Kenny is not able to call the game because he had been in a foreign country and he had to quarantine. I thought it was some kind of rookie hazing. The producer tells me, nice to meet you, FYI, Kenny is not doing the game. I didn’t say anything, but in my head, I’m thinking, yeah, right, whatever. Saturday rolls around, and Kenny is still not here. All of a sudden, we have someone coming in emergency mode to call the game. It was just surreal. I can say I called a game with Dick Stockton. With a total of zero fans. I could hear everything they were saying on the sidelines. It was so weird, I couldn’t even be nervous. FOX kept telling me every 10 minutes, I promise you, it’s not like this in real life.
The prep …
Collinsworth: I was sitting in my hotel room. I’m in Cleveland, Friday night. I’ve got manila envelopes, and on the top, I wrote the names of the offensive players and their numbers, and on the bottom, the defensive players and their numbers. I get a knock on the door. David Michaels was my producer — Al’s brother — he goes, what are you doing? I showed him my little manila envelope. He went, oh my God. He didn’t say it, but it was like, why do I have to get this complete idiot on the games with me? He gets on the phone with Terry Bradshaw, he’d done games with Bradshaw, and Bradshaw had these big, printed boards that had room for notes. He said, would you please send one of your boards? I got it the night before the game.
There were no practice games. There was no information. We were doing a game in San Diego one time, and I had a newspaper article from San Diego. I did the entire game around that newspaper article. You couldn’t watch film. Now, in this day and age, it’s just the opposite. I could watch film going back 20 years on any player I want to. But then, it was like you walked in there like you were a tourist in Cleveland and there was a ballgame and you thought, maybe I’ll go to the game, and somebody hands you a microphone, and you’re calling it today. It’s a grind. Just memorizing 100 names a week is hard. It’s like taking a final exam every week. You’re cramming. When I am flying home on the airplane from the game, I’m studying for the next game.
Kevin Harlan, CBS play-by-play (first called NFL games in 1991): They used to fax us stories from newspapers. But you couldn’t watch your game back with any kind of regularity. They would send you VHS tapes in the mail, sometimes you wouldn’t get them until Thursday or Friday. Now you see it when you’re on flights with officials — they are watching tapes of games that just ended two hours ago. It’s never been easier to prepare, but the big question is, what pool do you poke your toe in to get the temperature? Do you read the story from the beat writer? Do you trust your eyes and watch game film and talk to players? How deep in the coaching staff do you make calls that week? How many games back do you go watching this team?
Andrew Whitworth, Prime Video analyst (first called NFL games in 2022; 16 seasons as NFL player): I feel like all I do is study all week, and then I use 10 percent. The preseason is a lot more study of individual guys. Throughout a game, who’s the third corner, who’s a rusher in this situation. That study to call a game — those guys really have to prepare like they are coaching the team, you almost have to know those guys and their schemes. They study in that way.
“Am I nimble enough as the game is going on, and maybe it’s completely different from what I thought would happen, to recognize a sea change? Am I smart enough to pick out a play that triggers what we’re going to see and how it will end?” — CBS play-by-play announcer Kevin Harlan
Tiki Barber, CBS game analyst (first called NFL games in 2017; 10 seasons as NFL player): When I was a player, Monday would come, and I’d be preparing for Sunday’s game. Grinding on tape and on the game plan. As an analyst, you have to do the same thing; it’s almost harder. It’s both teams, it’s all components of both teams. Then you’re looking for public interest stories — what’s his nickname? What’s his story? It’s a lot of work. I lean on my twin [Ronde Barber], always I learned from him what a board should look like, what you need on that board, certain positions you just have to have a little nugget on. I listen to a lot of podcasts — if we’re in Cincinnati, I’m listening to the Bengals local podcast. What’s the local feel of this player? If I’m saying something about a player, and the fan base thinks the exact opposite, I kind of sound like an idiot.
Buck: For a play-by-play guy, you have to do less than you think. But that gnaws at your insecurity. If I don’t say something, will people think I don’t know what I should say? Getting out the necessary information but not overdoing it; that’s what you learn over time. Because you’re not the local announcer, you show up in Week 9, and you’ve got to be prepared and be able to fake your way through like you watched Weeks 1 through 8 of these two teams. We’re stealing from writers, going through clips, knowing the tenor of what is being said in the newspapers, following the injury history, what the expectations were coming in, and then you get to the business of, who is 88? Who is 62? There’s a lot of memorization and identification through visual cues — you’re picking out a certain way somebody runs or looks in their uniform so you can identify them faster.
Charles Davis, CBS game analyst (first called NFL games in 2009): Fortunately, I was doing high school games, college games, I came up through the ranks. I was sent to the low minors. And then I rode the buses. It allowed me to learn preparation. My first game I ever did, I had no idea how to prepare. Then I hit the system I use now. The very first college game I ever did, I got called eight days before the game. They tried 30 people, and they were desperate. I wasn’t in the market to do games. They offered me two games, and I asked, when do I audition? They said, you’re it, just say yes. I said great, what if I’m really bad in the first one? He said, then you’ll be really bad in the second one, I don’t have anyone else. I didn’t know when to look at the camera. I didn’t know anything.
Jason McCourty, CBS game analyst (first called NFL games in 2023; 13 seasons as NFL player): I remember asking Charles, how many games do you watch a week? I talked to Kurt Warner, and Kurt was like, I watch every NFL game. I was like, well, I don’t know if I can figure that out with three little kids. Charles said, you will figure out what you need. That was hard. What’s been really beneficial for me, is I walked off the field and walked right into the job. I know a lot of these guys on the roster, what schemes are they running. Knowing rosters has been good. There is no catalog, someone telling you step by step.
Ian Eagle, CBS play-by-play (first called NFL games in 1998): When I first started, I knew the depths of knowledge that was required. I didn’t know how the preparation actually manifested itself on the air. That’s what you learn over time. You do all this work during the week — how do you parse it out? The part I realized five or six years into it was, don’t try to force things that don’t fit. I would just empty the bucket, and I realized at some point, that’s not serving anybody other than me.
Nantz: I was a diehard fan as a kid, a massive consumer. There wasn’t enough material out there for me to get all the information I desired. The preparation was so much fun that I never thought of it as work. Homework for the games is a joyride, uncovering a piece of information you never heard about before. Seeing a piece of information and knowing how you could put it in your own words — I still love that treasure-hunt part of the job.
The hurdles …
Tony Romo, CBS game analyst (first called NFL games in 2017; 14 seasons as NFL player): Just the speed of it, when you first start. It’s not an exact science. The more you try to make it an exact science, the harder it is to flow. Something I’ve learned over the years, to just allow things to flow, and the game will come to you.
Davis: I never thought I’d get put on NFL games, because I never played in the NFL. Naturally, I was nervous — how would I be received? My first official game was Eagles and Panthers, and after our production meeting, I said to (Eagles) Coach (Andy) Reid, I’m nervous as heck, I didn’t play in the NFL, how’s this going to be? He looks at me and says, if you know what you’re talking about, you’ll be fine. If you don’t, oo-hoo. He didn’t pat me on the back or buck me up. That’s all he said.
Harlan: My dad (Bob Harlan) was with the Packers (as an executive), so from the time I was 11 or 12, I was in the Lambeau Field press box and handing out statistics and spotting for the network. It felt second-nature. I was 24 and did a preseason game, and I was still battling the broadcasting stuff, but not the football stuff. Talking too fast, when to lay out, when to let Len Dawson come in, what do you say to begin a play. The important things to pick out, and you can’t linger. Am I nimble enough as the game is going on, and maybe it’s completely different from what I thought would happen, to recognize a sea change? Am I smart enough to pick out a play that triggers what we’re going to see and how it will end? Sometimes I worry, am I processing what’s going on? Am I looking at it on a micro level? Am I stepping back for the wider perspective?
Eagle: When you’re calling games and something happens that you’ve never seen before, and you have to process it and spit back play-by-play immediately, there’s always going to be this uncomfortable moment. Did I handle that correctly? What exactly happened?
Ross Tucker, CBS game analyst (first called NFL games in 2009; seven seasons as NFL seasons): I tell people when they get started, you really have time to say one thing after the play. You’re so excited. I was seeing all these things. It’s not about telling the audience all the things you saw. What you have to tell them is one big reason why the play was or was not successful. It really does take experience telling the truck what you want. When you first start, you’re just watching the game and saying what happened. Now I see a play happen, and while the play-by-play guy is still talking, I’m pushing the button and telling them which camera I want, and I want to use the telestrator. Part of the art is knowing when there shouldn’t be a replay.
Whitworth: Me and [Richard Sherman and Ryan Fitzpatrick], when we came out of a break, our producer said, you guys just banter, we have time to fill. We all looked at each other like, what the crap does that mean? Oh, you mean, talk and be silly? We had no idea.
Davis: How about when the producer talks in your ear — imagine the first time you’re doing a game, you literally stop in the middle of your sentence. And then you answer them back on the air.
Burleson: It’s the dance between the set-up and color commentator. Being the color, I didn’t know how to jump in and out and pick up after first-and-10, Matthew Stafford with the ball and first down. I didn’t know what to say after that. That’s what scared me the most. Then another time, my first ever four-box (on-air panel appearance). I was like a meerkat. I didn’t know where to look. They were like, alright, Nate, you’re up. I forgot my question. It was a mess. That 15 seconds lasted a lifetime for me.
Davis: I was wondering how to translate from calling a college game to calling an NFL game. I had worked with Kevin Harlan at the NCAA basketball tourney. He said, the college audience is into anything about players, coaches, you can take a meat cleaver and put it to a story and it won’t matter. The kid walked eight miles to school, uphill both ways. The backstory is great. With the NFL, use a dagger. Tell the story, hit it and get out. NFL fans what to know what the score is, how am I doing in fantasy, am I up or down in my bet? What always surprised me at the end of the first quarter of an NFL game — it was like, What? It’s done? How much quicker the game moves, the clock moves, because more balls are thrown and caught, you’re not stopping the clock.
Barber: The most frustrating thing for me is the telestrator. I love it and I want to use it — just like being at a game, it’s going so fast. Reality is, I don’t use it enough. You have 8 seconds. You probably have 4 seconds to conceptualize what you want to write and communicate it while you’re writing before the next thing happens.
Buck: It’s very repetitious and rigid. I say who made the catch, who made the tackle, and I lay out, and [Troy Aikman] jumps in. You’ve got to hit it and he’s got to finish before the next snap, and I need to be able to hit up the down and distance, or we both lay out and there’s some natural sound. That stuff is gold. You have to say what you need to say but do it in the shortest amount of time possible. Troy has said it many times, and it applies to anybody — knowing football is about fourth or fifth on the list. It’s being quick, having a point. Ronnie Lott was at FOX and famously said after a game — this is Ronnie Lott! — I am more tired walking out of this booth than I ever was walking off the field. I walk out of the booth nine times out of 10 with a headache. There’s a lot of places you’re looking, the concentration, three hours of grinding. If you let off the gas, it can get away from you a little bit. You’ve got to go at least 55 miles per hour, or you’re going to get run over.
The reactions …
Buck: It was a different time. There was no social media, so if somebody thought we or I or he were terrible, you’d have to write a letter and put a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox, and it would never get read. Now, with social media, you get instant response. Everybody is in a microwave of first impressions.
Burleson: I was talking about the Packers and how the wide receivers weren’t getting off the ball, and Aaron Rodgers was under duress. I said teams are going to continue to press at the line and smother the receivers, and if they can’t get open, they’re going to struggle all season long. It was a normal take. Fast-forward a few weeks later, I was in Detroit calling a game, and James Jones sees me checking in. He starts pacing towards me. And he’s like, as a former wide receiver, how you going to do us like that? You’re just going to dog us and say it’s our fault and we’re struggling because we can’t get open? I was taken aback because that’s my worst fear, because I want guys in this fraternity to know I always have their back. I’m like, my bad, is that how I came off? He smirks, I’m just playing, man. You were going in on us, and you did it in a way that’s digestible. That was the greatest bit of validation, to say you can walk that fine line; if you’re critical and you don’t attack or get personal, guys will always respect it. I’m also going to build you up, I’m going to praise you. Initially, you do have to get over it. Everything can’t be a great catch and a good job and everything is going well — that’s not the game, and fans don’t want to hear that.
Barber: [Michael Strahan] gave me advice. He would say sometimes you have to throw some salt, but you have to throw some sugar on it.
Collinsworth: Because our games were always the worst games, it was always the worst two teams playing. We would interview 10 players, and basically the questions were, why do you stink? Why are you a horrible football team? You’re immediately the evil person in the room, and nobody wants to see you come to their game site, because all you’re going to do is your research on why they are so bad. Somebody did a poll of the least liked announcers, and I was No. 1. Of course I’m No. 1, I’ve never called a game with a good team.
All of them call me when they get the job, and my question is: Do you like being popular? Because you will not be. When I get to Pittsburgh, I talk to the person who drives me from the airport. I talk to the bellhop. What do they think about their team? They’ve been watching it for 50 years. They know every intimate detail. And on one week’s notice, we are expected to know more than those people that have been watching the team for 50 years. If you live in Philadelphia, they do it all day. They critique the team. You come in from the outside and talk about their team, and they’re mad. If you really want to be popular — if that’s what you want to do — just understand you’re going to get picked apart.
Tucker: If John Madden were doing games right now, 10 percent of people would be like, this guy sucks. Why is this guy talking about turkey? I want him to talk about the game.
Editors: Ali Bhanpuri, Tom Blair, Dan Parr
Illustration by: David Lomeli
